Wintering Better

Everyone loves summer. If you have to name a favorite season (which you absolutely don’t!! Who says you do?), summer is a non-controversial option. Bright sun, long days, beach time, et cetera. And spring is a close runner-up, with its warmer weather, greenery and flowers, and of course the anticipation of summer. If you want to be alternative and edgy (i.e., me in early adulthood lol), you’d cite fall (or 🍂autumn🍂, to put some extra sauce on it) as your favorite season, for its foliage, cider, pumpkin patches, sweater weather.

Winter is arguably the least popular season (again, who decided we have to even pick favorites and least favorites?! We don’t!) — it’s cold, dark, and has a penchant for hosting various wildly communicable upper respiratory illnesses, which nobody likes.

In the last couple of years, though, I have started to more consciously embrace wintering for myself, and deliberately taking the time to slow down (and reflect more) over colder months. Like a hibernating bear, or a bird doing torpor (torporing? does one “do torpor”? Idk, and I can’t ask a bird right now). Part of me always secretly liked taking a slower pace, staying inside for longer, sleeping in a little more. Especially in the city, and being a generally active person, there is often a certain pressure to go out and DO STUFF and be productive (both in a work sense and a social sense). In most of my adulthood so far, I aggressively spent 120% of my time work-work-working to exhaustion partly because I actually like work for the sake of work (not necessarily a bad thing) and also because I believed that was what I was supposed to do in order to be a productive and valuable member of society (not necessarily a good thing).

But, I’ve been trying to reframe my attitude toward winter. This means:

Is this toxic positivity? Am I just gaslighting myself? Maybe. Sometimes when the sun truly hasn’t been out in days, it feels extremely gloomy, hopeless, and like winter will never end. But it always does. I think ideally society would better support this type of slowdown or semi-hibernation for everybody. Like how in western Europe a lot of businesses shut down in August (because people are out relaxing and vacationing because it’s summer). North America and especially the US are like the young adult cousin still trying to hustle and overwork itself no matter the season. We could decide as a collective to just chill out a little bit more, instead of pockets of individuals trying to do so, but we don’t.

Part of the shift in my own mindset is also a general personal shift towards being more in tune with my own body, which is something relatively new for me (or at least noticing it and being intentional about it is new-ish). If I’m tired, I sleep. If I’m hungry, I eat. If I’m full, I stop. If I’m thirsty, I drink water. If I have to use the bathroom, I go. I don’t default to an alcoholic beverage at meals or as a social activity anymore (although I do enjoy a well-made cocktail, a shower beer¹, or a hot drink with a shot of dark liquor from time to time).

What wintering doesn’t (or shouldn’t) mean — two things:

• It doesn’t mean being disconnected or isolated. While winter can certainly feel isolating because we are generally out less, it just means I have to be more intentional about keeping in touch, with the people who matter. To be honest, I have had trouble making social plans since the lockdown period of the pandemic (independent of the seasons), even though I used to be quite socially active. It’s like a muscle that has atrophied that I’ve forgotten how to use, which feels discouraging sometimes. Lately I have started making “appointments” to call or FaceTime friends, which feels annoyingly corporate and I’m still trying to get over that part of it, but it has been nice to check in and see how people are doing and talk about how I’m doing.
• It doesn’t mean being cooped up inside and never going outside, or being physically inactive. I go for at least one long-ish nature-ish walk a day. Last year I did 30 days in a row of nature walks between December and January, sometimes multiple times a day. I think winter nature (snow, no mosquitoes, audibly quieter) is in some ways more pleasant than summer nature (sun and humidity, hella bugs). Having good weather-appropriate outerwear and access to nature are things I had not really prioritized until recently but it makes it a lot easier to be physically active in the colder months.

(I have also tried very hard not to be a hater on summer in my discourse here, but I really do think it is unnecessarily glorified. I won’t say no to an occasional beach trip, but I feel like it is not as chill as people romanticize it to be. I feel like I just have to accept that there will likely be sand everywhere ([whispers] EVERYWHERE), I’m going to miss an obvious spot with the sunscreen, and no one can ever guarantee that when wading or treading water, someone else has not urinated in my vicinity, which I suppose is the case outside of the water as well, and urine is sterile and everything, but — hey! I don’t have to justify not wanting to be peed near!!) Although summer is also a time for slowing down in a sense, wintering feels different in that it’s not necessarily rest and relaxation in a vacationing sense, at least in my mind. Maybe because it coincides with the end of the year, it feels more like a time of reflection and turning inward in order to look ahead.

In any case, I’m glad to have an opportunity to take it a little bit easier and get cozy.

• Midlife
• Thoughts
• Nature